You have to give David Lapp credit. The 22-year-old young man knew what he wanted, search and he got her — a wife. It wasn’t easy. When David and his wife Amber told her father that they wanted to get married (at ages 22 and 21, diagnosis respectively), buy he hit the ceiling.

Thankfully, Amber’s father changed his mind. The couple is now happily married, and David has told the whole world about it in an op-ed column for The Wall Street Journal. In the column, he deals head-on with objections to young marriage…

From David’s words:

“First, let’s take a closer look at that term “early marriage.” While it’s true that teenage marriages are a significant predictor of divorce, it turns out that marriages of people in their early to mid-20s are not nearly as much at risk. According to a 2002 report from the Centers for Disease Control, 48% of people who enter marriage when under age 18, and 40% of 18- and 19-year-olds, will eventually divorce. But only 29% of those who get married at age 20 to 24 will eventually divorce—very similar to the 24% of the 25-and-older cohort. In fact, Hispanics who marry between the ages of 20 and 24 actually have a greater likelihood of marital success (31% chance of divorce) than those who first marry at age 25 and older (36% chance of divorce).”

Add to this the fact that other studies indicate that couples who marry between the ages of 22 and 25 “went on to experience the happiest marriages.” You don’t hear about that on “Oprah.”

The view of when is too young to marry often depends on where you live in the country. In cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, there is a often a culture of pushing people to wait and explore life. It is good to see strong Christian couples standing up and pointing out that we can live in Christ against this media driven culture of living for the short-term. That is not to say that one must marry. It is simply to say that the cultural push to not marry until you have “experienced life” is not the only choice.
You do not have to look far to find evidence of the fact that males are in trouble in these confused and confusing times. On the university campuses, more about
women undergraduate students outnumber young men by a clear margin — 60% to 40%…

In many churches, young men and older boys are simply missing. The absence of young men ages 18 to 30 is just a fact of life in many congregations. Though this is especially acute in the mainline Protestant denominations, it is increasingly true of many evangelical churches as well.

One dimension of this problem is the difficulty of helping boys develop into manhood — a responsible, healthy, and meaningful manhood…

Of course, Christianity honors the man who fights “the good fight of faith,” and the most important fight to which a Christian man is called is the fight to grow up into godly manhood, to be true to wife and provide for his children, to make a real contribution in the home, in the church, and in the society, and to show the glory of God in faithfully living out all that God calls a man to be and to do. This means a fight for truth, for the Gospel, and for the virtues of the Christian life. The New Testament is filled with masculine — and even martial — images of Christian faithfulness. We must be unashamed of these, and help a rising generation of men and boys to understand what it means to be a man in Christ.

Are you raising a son? Does your church have a difficult time attracting men to services and to become members? This article does not give all of the answers, but it is a short overview of many of the issues facing men today and suggestions for supporting authentic manhood in our families and in our churches. Click here to read the rest of the article.